Italy’s government wobbles as ‘Super Mario’ resigns

Following fast on the heels of the fall of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his Italian counterpart Mario Draghi tendered his resignation last Thursday.

While Draghi’s offer to quit was refused, for now, by Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella, the government could yet collapse soon. In the words of Draghi last Thursday, “the mood of national unity, which supported this government since its inception, no longer exists” and his 17-month old government is therefore in limbo with its survival sorely tested by increasingly sharp divergences within the right-left coalition.

Draghi has governed with the support of virtually all of Italy's main parties, with the exception of the fast-rising Brothers of Italy party. That far-right organisation, which has been riding a wave of increasing popularity and is now polling at 22 per cent, is a deeply Euroskeptic, nationalist party. Its leader, Giorgia Meloni, has called again for an early election that she hopes will be her springboard to becoming Italy's first woman prime minister.